Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Random House Lawyers Misrepresent...AGAIN!

in their attempt to make me pay for the privilege of having them sue me is -- like all their other filings -- filled with distortions, misrepresentations, misquotes and factual errors.

There are serious mistakes on every page ... but here are a couple:

The use of quotes on page 5 ("KEY SELLING POINT" and "major publicity") make it seem as if I said those things. I did not say those things. Is it ethical to do something like this in order to create that false impression?

They also state that "Perdue cannot deny and does not deny that the "KEY SELLING POINT" for the re-launch of the work was Perdue's 'major publicity' for his accusations against Brown."

Well, I CAN and I DO DENY THAT -- my publisher felt that the book IS the original book in the genre and that readers are interested in the topic regardless of the infringement issues.

But Random House clearly tries to make reality seem different by shoving into my mouth words and intent that are provably untrue.

The same sort of thing occurs a few lines lower when the lack of attribution on another quote makes it seem as if I am the one stating the "blatant plagiarism" statement. In fact, that was a quote from forensic linguistics expert John Olsson stating his expert opinion AFTER conducting his thorough analysis.

There are many, many, many more of these and I'll deal with them in a series of posts. The Random House attorneys have whined in the filings, outraged that I have engaged in "personal attacks" on them. They will probably interpret the above as a personal attack as well.

It's not a personal attack; it's just the truth. This whole affair would be a lot better if everyone would just stick to the facts.

FACT: I didn't say those things.FACT: They wrote the brief to make it appear as if I said those things.

You draw your own conclusion.

But you MUST wonder: if their case is as strong as they claim, why must they resort to distortions and misrepresentations.